As most of you know, I think, Mrs. Fisk, Boscia Fisk, died yesterday afternoon about five o'clock, maybe. I was in the hospital with her and Steve Weintraub and Yvonne Rand had been there most of the week helping her. And they were there yesterday afternoon too. Can you hear me? No? Okay. Anyway, I think there's some importance to saying something about the life of Mrs. Fisk, who was our oldest member, I think. And she gave her life to Buddhism, actually, all the way up to the last minute she decided to live with us. Often she felt maybe it was too troublesome for us,

[01:26]

I think she always realized that, and we expressed to her, that her being here was wonderful for us. To have her here really made the building quite a different place. Anyway, she was 83, and I don't know so much about her life, but she was born, I believe, Bertha Whitehead Jones, and she married somebody. Oh, her father died when she was five, and she, um, mother remarried to somebody named Fisk. And she went to Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley. And she... Her pet name or school nickname was Boscia. And years later she had her name changed legally to Boscia. And she was married twice and she was... had three professions. I think she was...

[02:52]

She used to give dramatic readings in Hollywood and be an actress. And she knew many of the early stars of silent films as she lived there in Southern California. And she was a teacher of elocution and she also was a general semanticist and she studied with Korzybski, who was the founder of General Semantics. And she started, I guess she was connected with Krishnamurti for a while, too. I don't know exactly, but anyway, she studied with Nyogen Senzaki, who gave her a Buddhist name, Sekinan. And then, she also knew Soenroshi quite well, and from those early days of American Buddhism, she was a friend of Paul Reps, and knew Alan Watts, and that era of Zen in America which preceded us. And Suzuki Roshi gave her

[04:16]

Raksu, too, a Buddhist robe. And she came here to live, how long ago? Four years, five years ago? Three years ago? Three years ago. A year before I came back from Japan? She gave many dramatic readings for us. She had fans, five fans, I believe, which she made look like 50. And she would do this various kinds of readings of poetry or acting out things. Anyway, she was a wonderful person. So sometime this week or soon we'll have a funeral ceremony and memorial service for her. I don't know exactly when. Depends on circumstances.

[05:27]

Anyway, we come and we go and each of us should know our own coming and going. Without that, your life won't have any base. And it's amazing how easy it is to forget, you know, how easy it is to forget. our deep life. Practice is a way of reminding ourselves of our deep life, but sometimes we forget even to practice. And how to remind ourselves, or why should we? It's amazing, you go to a hotel and it's like a funeral parlor. You know, soft music in the background and thick carpets, and anything disturbing is removed. So much of our American life is like a funeral parlor, trying to avoid anything disturbing, anything that requires us to be tough with ourselves or look at what we're actually doing. Somehow we think that nothing

[07:27]

counts, or everything is relative. And in Buddhism, of course, we say everything changes, but we don't say everything is relative, or it's maybe relatively relative, but not absolutely relative. Delusion or illusion is technically defined in Buddhism as that which ends, that which comes to an end, including suffering. But our true nature or some sense, some knowledge, experience of a deeper life doesn't come to an end. But how to enter that

[08:27]

know that in our activity through the myriad changes is the effort of practice. Many of you here are in the week session that starts, that started today. I think for those of us who do zazen, sesshin is our most important practice. Without at least some sesshins, it's nearly impossible to know the taste of real zazen, to know the real rhythm of our life when extraneous things are removed. and that real rhythm is the basis of Zen life. Without a sense, knowledge of that rhythm, our life will constantly be helter-skelter or getting off whack.

[09:45]

So I think that most of you who can should do at least one or two week sessions a year. And maybe sit once all day in one of the one-day sittings. Maybe not every month, but every couple months. Without that kind of experience and that kind of difficulty it's nearly impossible to remind ourselves of our deeper life. We get so caught up in petty affairs I think you all know the story of Nansen's cat. Yes? No? Almost no? Someone doesn't anyway. The monks at Nansen's monastery, and Nansen and Joshu, Joshu was Nansen's disciple, and Joshu made famous Mu Koan. But Nansen and Joshu were

[11:26]

master and disciple, but actually they were like one teacher for the monastery. They worked together, you know, as all disciples should work together. But this particular day, Joshu didn't happen to be there, and the monks of the two wings of the monastery were fighting over a cat. And Nansen must have been disgusted, actually, at the pettiness of such a squabble. Not only are they not practicing, but they are fighting over a cat. How serious he must have felt, you know, to hold up a cat and say, just one word, one good word from you will save the cat. You know, and no one could say anything. So he cut the cat in two.

[12:45]

such a horrendous thing to do, to destroy himself that way for the monks of his monastery. Can't you see you're killing your own Buddha nature? Can't you see you're killing your own deeper life? So in the evening, Joshu came back to the monastery and And Nansen told him the story. And Joshua took one sandal and put it on top of his head and walked out. And Nansen said, if you had been there, we would have saved the cat.

[14:15]

So Nansen, Joshu, so Joshu knew that we just have to be one with each other. If one of those monks had understood Nansen, they would have saved the cat. But not one monk shared Nansen's mind. Not one monk was able to speak directly to nonsense. So, Joshua understood what to do is to be one with your teacher, to be one with whatever you find yourself in.

[15:32]

And so he did something upside down, too, putting his sandal on top of his head. I'm just agreeing with his teacher. I, too, will do something upside down. One sandal, and then he walked away. Nothing more to be said. no more expression needed. But this, you know, upside down, or right side up is interesting, because we tend to think nothing counts, or we think it happened in the past, and we don't know that in this present moment you are creating the past. Whatever happened up till now, as given its meaning by your action now, Western psychology is very pernicious in that it makes us think it happened in the past.

[16:59]

But your whole life is given meaning by your acts now. And you transform your life by your acts now. And what you do counts if it's out of proportion. What's out of proportion accumulates as your karma, as your afflicted activity. And it's not true, you know, that everything is relative and it doesn't make any difference. We should know it makes a difference and how to find out it makes a difference, you know, is practice. We are so weak though, you know, Mrs. Nakamura, Nakamura sensei, used to say, we are so weak, she said, just a cloudy day will bring us down. So most of our conversation with people is either relatively inane or it's

[18:31]

loving and supportive but still without any sense in it of what's really going on, of the difficulty much of the world is in and the suffering of people right in front of us for whom we don't do anything or only peripherally will acknowledge such real life between us. So you have to start somewhere, and the beginning is always right in front of you, you know. And any some idea of goal or over there or out there or it's too long or everything is a useless way of thinking. Right now there is a beginning and you just act this moment. Anything else is death. Avoiding it is

[19:52]

We say to ourselves it's kind of a sidewise wisdom by which we're going to learn something so that when we get ready to act, we'll act better. Well, if you ever start, it might be so. But actually, right now, there's not just one act right now. If you really know space and time, there's a thousand acts right now. And we usually don't see any opportunity. So, anyway, first of all, in Sesshin you can come to know your space, your own location. And if you know your own location, well, you'll know there is an up and a down, and outer proportion and in proportion.

[20:58]

I think most of you must have had the experience in zazen of becoming quite calm, not so disturbed by anything, and then suddenly feeling yourself tipped over. But if you feel your body, it's quite straight but you feel tipped like this or sometimes all the way over or forward and you can't imagine how you can feel so tipped. And you'll find that something is out of whack which you barely notice but when your state of mind is quite calm you notice immediately. And eventually you can notice other people out of whack or in whack. They will tend to tip you over. You can feel them

[22:16]

You can feel their presence, their strength doing that to you, you know? Sometimes you should tip with them, you know? And sometimes you should straighten them out, you know? This actually is the way people control each other, you know? a powerful businessman, he may go to Harvard Business School, but actually what he does is he knows, unconsciously usually, how to align that with others which controls those people in his presence. You know, they don't teach that at Harvard Business School, but actually something like that's going on when one person is powerful. So in Buddhism we relax right out of this by having it in proportion, by finally physically being able to know your space and the people's space who you're with. So when you sit in zazen you should sit with people quite

[23:40]

in relationship to them. The line in the zendo shouldn't go like this. It shouldn't be, because you should be able to, at some point, you know, as a practice, find yourself in exact relationship to other people. And in sashin we can do that and stay there. Anyway, you will find in your zazen that it does make a difference whether you sit straight or crooked or standing or walking or lying if all your activity, including your space, is in proportion. Dogen said, when he came back from China after about five years. He was asked what he learned in China, what he brought from China, and he said, only nose is vertical and eyes are horizontal. This is not just

[25:00]

Everything is ordinary. Oh, just as we see it, exactly. He meant something. We know each thing has its place and we respect that. And he tried to teach it in various ways. He would say, high thing should belong in high place and low thing in low place. I had quite a lot of difficulty with that when I was working with Dogen, with Suzuki Roshi when I first started practicing. I thought, that's feudalism, you know, and I discounted it. Oh, Dogen is wonderful except his feudal side I'm not interested in. F-E-U-D-A-L. Not futile, but maybe so, both. And what especially used to get me was Dogen said, you should not offer incense

[26:35]

with the hand with which you wipe yourself." I used to think, my God, it's just as sacred to wipe yourself as to offer incense and somewhat more necessary. And I put this down as feudalism again, you know, But you know, we wouldn't come here and, excuse me for saying so, take a shit on the altar. Most people wouldn't, I think. You'd feel uncomfortable or that you were doing something wrong, you know. So what Dogen is pointing out

[27:38]

is don't think that space and time are something all separated up and that what you do now doesn't count. We have this idea. For instance, when you wear Buddha's robe, we have the bowing cloth. We put the bowing cloth down and bow. It's just a practice. We could do it any way, but we take it as a practice. You know, like Gutei's finger, you know. No matter what the circumstances, how they change, Gutei always answered this way. Something should be absolute. We should know something. So, we always put the bowing cloth underneath the Buddha's robe. Even if you're carrying it, you put the bowing cloth underneath and it's rather difficult to carry that way because it drips down, you know. It's easier to put it on top if we're carrying it to Sazen. But our practice is to remind ourself in that way that things have their place. So Dogen was pointing out that what you do at the altar is not disconnected from what you do in the toilet.

[29:04]

and what you do in any place is all one piece. There's no escaping from that. So you can offer incense with any hand you want, you know, but you should not think that one act is disconnected from another act. Your lifetime is one piece of cloth. So in a sashin like this, you can find in you your true life, your base, with everything unnecessary removed. Then anything you add you understand its proportion and there will be harmony in your life. And the more you understand that, you know, you can know your whole being and something bigger than your whole being. You know, as we know that red corpuscles, say, in your blood can't be defined separate from white corpuscles.

[30:31]

And red and white corpuses can't be defined separate from your blood as a whole. And blood can't be defined separate from your heart and etc. But it's very difficult for us. because our mind is a part to grasp how we're a whole. As if a white corpuscle had a mind, it would be difficult for it to understand the heart. So, Dogen says, when the Dharma is not fully present, we think it's sufficient. but when the Dharma is fully present we think it's, we feel insufficiency. So we'll find some urge in ourself, urge in our parts for knowing the whole.

[31:44]

and beyond the whole. That urge for some deeper love or rebirth or nirvana. And actually, you know, our whole life is sweeping toward nirvana. And death is nothing but, you know, maybe an uncomfortable dissolution of the parts. Knowing again the whole. But we don't have to wait till death. Right now, you have that urge awakened. And once you have that urge awakened, it's a tragedy not to answer it. your life won't. It'll be worse even if you didn't know than if you didn't know. So we can see in other people

[33:05]

Even if we can't see in ourself, we can see in other people that their suffering and difficulty comes from not accepting that sweep toward nirvana. We can clearly see that their problems, their suffering, their difficulties are because of the petty scale, the small scale in which they view their life. And if they had a sense of the whole, they would not feel that. But you can't do anything about it. You can't give someone some part, a sense of a whole. So you have to answer it in yourself. So to help others in this way means to help yourself. And you resonate then with others. As you hit one bell, another bell will answer.

[34:09]

And if you know your own true life it will awaken that true life in others. They won't be able to relate to you any other way and they'll feel it awaken their own true life. So our practice is to more and more stop the discrimination that prevents knowing the whole and finally to turn that around so no longer you even know the whole which allows you to know that which is larger than ourselves easy to know smaller than ourselves hard to know ourselves as a whole, almost impossible, but real enlightenment is to know that which is bigger than our whole, bigger than ourself, and know it in every action. This is not inconceivable and not impossible,

[35:33]

It just requires some sense of reality and the ability to act now. Death is not so easy and We shouldn't think because we've been practicing zazen all our life we're prepared for death. There's nothing to depend on. Zazen isn't something to depend on. The point of our practice is to be imperturbable. If you can be perturbed, we should perturb you. That's all in practice. Only in this way can you meet the finality of each moment with calmness and real presence. My deepest wish is for you to do this.

[37:00]

as we pay our respects to Voja, Fisk, who spent her life practicing, and much of it with us.

[37:24]

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